Daily Archives: December 11, 2009

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Bonuses? For what – trillion dollar deficits? Broken procurement systems? Aren’t those the arguments we heard used to deny Wall Street their bonuses? Well, in terms of waste, fraud and abuse Wall Street can’t touch the fed. But we’re paying bonuses and 6 figure salaries?

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

The problem? The law of unintended consequences coupled with stupid pay rules and the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing all combined to see unseemly pay raises the rule in the midst of 7.3 million job losses – a true, “do as I say not as I do” moment. That’s right – it’s up the the rest of you to “sacrifice” – not the fed.
~McQ

It would appear the “Gang of 10 (Senators)” compromise bill which Harry Reid has been touting but refusing to give details about would bend the cost curve way up:

Senate Democrats have provided few details about their latest health care proposal, but this much seems clear: Anyone who wants to buy the same health benefits as members of Congress, or to buy coverage through Medicare, should be prepared to fork over a large chunk of cash.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, a family of four earning $54,000 in 2016, when the health legislation is fully in effect, would be eligible for a subsidy of $10,100 to help defray the cost of insurance under the health legislation being debated by the Senate. By then, one of the most popular federal plans, a nationwide Blue Cross and Blue Shield policy, is projected to cost more than $20,000.

That could leave the family earning $54,000, slightly more than the current median household income, with monthly premium costs of more than $825.

The Democrats’ proposal would also allow some people ages 55 to 64 to “buy in” to Medicare, starting in 2011. That could cost about $7,600 a year per person or $15,200 for a couple, according to a budget office analysis of an earlier version of the concept. No subsidies would be available until 2014.

So why are many Democrats so “enthusiastic” over the proposal. Well, let’s knock off all the spin and be blunt about it:

“Extending this successful program to those between 55 and 64 would be the largest expansion of Medicare in 44 years and would perhaps get us on the path to a single-payer model,” said Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York.

That is the name of the game here and don’t ever loose sight of that. Liberals want a government run single-payer system. And whether they get there via a “public option” or expanding Medicare doesn’t matter one whit to them.

The city of Berkeley made an official statement on abortion Wednesday by sending coat hangers — a symbol of illegal abortions — to 20 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted to restrict federal funding for abortions in the health care bill.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who co-sponsored the item before the City Council on Tuesday night with Susan Wengraf and Linda Maio, put the coat hangers and an official city letter in the mail Wednesday.

“The coat hanger represents the time when women had to have abortions in back alleys and tried to self-abort,” Wengraf said. “My initial take was this is too extreme. But women’s reproductive health is very important to me.

“I don’t want my granddaughter to go through what my grandmothers had to. I don’t want it compromised. I don’t think the health care bill is reform if it excludes access to women’s reproductive health care.”

It does not “exclude” access to “women’s reproductive health care”, today’s euphemism for abortion. Abortion remains legal and accessible. It simply denies payment at a federal level for the procedure, much like coverage for cosmetic coverage is denied. Does the denial of the latter somehow “exclude” access to cosmetic surgeons and make that procedure a “back alley” procedure? No, you simply buy a private bit of insurance or, *gasp*, pay for the procedure out of pocket. But both remain completely legal and completely available. Neither, however, should be subsidized by taxpayers (along with many other things).

“I think the coat hanger is an inappropriate symbol, and it could backfire on us,” Wozniak said.

Indeed, it’s not only inappropriate, but it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the proposal which makes the coat-hanger group look foolish. But then consider what group is doing this (the city that banned the military) and it isn’t at all surprising they look foolish.